Sir, – Alan Hynes of the Tuam Labour Branch vents his discontent with the path taken by our party in Government (April 12th). The narrative reveals a surprising naivety. This is hardly a time for "the bleeding heart", but a time for the steel nerve and the cool brain. And if, as Mr Hynes hopes, we are to restore trust in the electorate, as a party we must be brutally honest. If the voters of East Galway, for whom he has a deep respect, have not seen the gravity of the situation by now they have very little intelligence to insult. Any comparison at this time with the polices of Margaret Thatcher is both disingenuous and shameful and a more appropriate analogy might be Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress .
Contrary to what he states, we have not let the electorate down. We have awakened from the dream induced by lavish electoral promises of past governments and which are now being repeated by Gerry Adams – a Utopian vision where everything will be free (no house tax, no water charges, no septic tank charges). – Yours, etc,
JOHN F FALLON,
Ardagh, Boyle,
Co Roscommon.
A chara, – This week’s Labour party self-examination piece on the Opinion pages was by Derek McDowell (Opinion, April 11th). The former TD argues Labour would like to be “spending money, improving services, increasing benefits, building infrastructure” but asserts at the same time, the party cannot be held responsible for the state of the economy or job losses or education and health cuts due to previous government policies.
Fianna Fáil in government got certain things wrong, but Labour’s criticism of the party until the time of the banking collapse was that Fianna Fáil was not spending enough on public services. It was Labour that, in 2007, first promised to cut the standard rate of income tax to 18 per cent and whose manifesto was identified by this newspaper at the time as being the most high-spending of all the main parties during that election campaign.
Labour supported the broad thrust of Fianna Fáil policies from 1997 to 2007. It favoured more public spending and cutting taxes. The narrowing of our tax base was a disaster and Fianna Fáil must take blame for that, but for others to wash their hands and say they disagreed is a rewriting of recent political history.
At the 2011 election, Labour set out clearly why it was needed in government to stop Fine Gael doing certain things; cutting child benefit, car tax hikes, VAT hikes, even an extra euro on a bottle of wine. Was this not, as Mr McDowell stated, promising “the sun, moon and stars”?
For next week’s Labour opinion piece, could you ask the writer to please base it on fact and not some sort of revisionist propaganda that would not be out of place in Pyongyang? – Is mise,
Cllr MALCOLM BYRNE,
Fianna Fáil,
The Chase,
Gorey,
Co Wexford.